


no rest for good men

by turkeymagic



Category: Fire Emblem Echoes: Mou Hitori no Eiyuu Ou | Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia, Fire Emblem Series
Genre: (no zombies), Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Explorations, Gen, Nagamas 2018, Post-Game(s), Revival Fountain, also exploring themes of resentment helplessness and gendered suffering
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-30
Updated: 2019-02-14
Packaged: 2019-10-19 15:04:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17603585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/turkeymagic/pseuds/turkeymagic
Summary: Clive’s orders were for Tobin to kill a witch, not stop a particular woman’s crusade to disrupt the fabric between life and death.(And if witches are involved, well… Clive never said the witch had to stay dead.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nelenus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nelenus/gifts).



Tobin doesn’t have many fond memories of Fear Mountain, but when Clive sends him south, he goes without protest.

That’s how he does most things these days - without protest. It isn’t like he’s afraid to speak up; King Alm certainly won’t punish him for it. Things are just a little more complicated than two kids with wooden swords quarreling over who got the last hit in. Turns out adding courtiers into a friendship will do that, and even six years into his knighthood, Tobin still catches the occasional noble eyeing him with some measure of curiosity, like _he’s_ the interloper.

It shouldn’t get to him. He knows it shouldn’t. It doesn’t.

He doesn’t spend much time in the palace anyway, not with everything that still needs to be done outside of it. No one had really thought through the whole “killing Duma” thing. At the time, it was just what needed to be done, so they did it. What came after - the reunification of Rigel and Zofia, the devastated towns in the wake of the combat, the famine - somehow Alm handled all of it. Not alone of course. There was Queen Celica at his side, and Prince Conrad at the helm of the nobility, and Clive in charge of the army. Lady Mathilda placated the southern aristocrats, nobles who had clung to their lands by yielding to Desaix, and the old priest Nomah wrested control back from the Duma Faithful.

Tobin’s lips twist as he urges his horse through a village. Ram Village isn’t so different from villages here, with the exception of one thing: the sallow old men swathed in worn rags, so wretched even urchins give them wide berth. To be honest, Tobin only notices them because they appeared so often in his night terrors. Their skin, once inhumane in blues and purples, have grayed and sagged. Their eyes no longer hold any semblance of madness or delusion, just the aimless despair of men who’ve glimpsed unholy power only for it to vanish before them.

The townspeople must recognize them too, even if they don’t fully understand what the cantors have lost. No, they see the cantors, but they also see how the new monarchy fumbles with these...creatures. How they aren’t quite civilians, aren’t quite citizens, but aren’t quite monsters either. Without Duma’s magic, his power, they’ve lost any ability to conjure - the Terrors themselves disintegrated with the sunrise after Duma fell. Nor can they, nor anyone, hear Duma’s call any longer.

Poems call this due justice. The price the cantors paid for their cruel ambition. They sacrificed human lives for power, and in return they ended up with nothing at all. Even the most pious of the Rigelians have disappeared, converted to secular citizens who cast their eyes away from the cantors.

Still, their presence makes Tobin uneasy. Like the war wasn’t over when they laid Duma’s bones to rest.

But King Alm insists they not lay hands on the cantors, now that the fight has left them. And Tobin does nothing if not follow orders.

...

His orders are to kill a witch. Supposedly, some villagers are up-in-arms about another witch settling into the old abandoned mansion at the peak, like a vulture building its nest atop the skeleton of some other predator’s kill. It’s routine to Tobin now, which is part of the reason he mostly works alone. The other, of course, is that they’re still short on hands. Apparently conquest, famine, and revolution leave little in the way of administrators and soldiers.

Instead, the settling dust invites scavengers. Bandits, falling prey to temptation or desperation. Prophets, capitalizing on fear and uncertainty at their height. Nobles, scenting opportunity in the power vacuum at the new king’s heel.

Most of it is none of Tobin’s concern, not unless Clive sends him to remove them, and even then his approach is more of a bandage than a solution. No, it’s the king’s job to eliminate whichever weakness in the country turns people into prey. Tobin may kill bandits but they don’t infringe on his conscience.

The witches do.

He doesn’t think killing them is wrong. They wander the countryside, claiming victims where they can, and so they must be stopped. Their monstrous power, given to them by Duma, may be gone, but their souls haven’t returned to fill in that absence. The cantors gave their souls for power and then lost it; the witches are women no longer, just gaping voids seeking to fill that emptiness the only way Duma taught them.

It is, Tobin thinks, the most wretched kind of end: the kind that can’t even be described as yours.

Noah slows as the ground under her hooves turns rough. She isn’t the same mare he rode during the war, the one they’d requisitioned from a random Rigelian stable they’d “liberated.” Tobin had purchased her himself, declining the standard war horses knights typically led into battle. She harrumphs as her ears swivel back and forth, and Tobin’s steadying hand beside her mane does little to assuage her concerns.

The villa sits in a cradle of rocky mountain tops, protected on all sides by steep cliffs. When the path grows too unsteady to ride safely, Tobin dismounts and leads his horse by hand.

Though he's tread this ground before, he remembers little of it, the second half of the war little but a sleepless blur. In his memory, there are dilapidated pillars covered in mountain moss and cobweb-riddled windows, a veritable fortress atop blackened mud. Instead, Tobin finds the villa rather plain. The walls are built from white stone, unremarkable compared to the glossy marbles and even brick of Valentian mansions. Though faded, the windows are uncracked and adorned with exterior planters filled with weeds and resilient mushrooms. Tobin climbs the stairs to the porch, releasing Noah’s reins to take his sword into hand, and accidentally dislodges the upper half of a mountain goat skull from its bed place on the door mat.

There’s no dust to be seen, not on the skull or the stairs or the door frame.

A witch that likes to sweep then.

“Pardon my intrusion,” Tobin murmurs, and then the door opens right before he touches the handle.

It’s a human-colored woman - older than him, maybe by a decade or so, and taller too. She regards Tobin with perplexed curiosity, but not surprise, and Tobin thinks she must be more than she appears.

“May I help you, Sir…?” the woman says. She’s pretty, with rosy life to her cheeks, which are framed by chin-length strands of wavy hair. Her posture reminds Tobin of Lady Clair, purposeful and dignified, with a touch of something gentler that Tobin can’t put a name to. She looks like one of the noblewomen at court, not a squatter at the top of a graveyard mountain.

“Uh, Tobin,” Tobin says automatically. Her eyebrows raise as if she hadn’t intended to prompt his name at all. “I’m investigating word of a witch here?”

“Oh,” the woman says and reconsiders him. Tobin doesn’t miss her gaze landing on his drawn sword and the bow strung across his back. “There’s no witch here.”

She moves to shut him out - a mistake, if her intent was to get rid of him quickly. Tobin catches the door before it closes and doesn’t flinch when the back of his hand bangs against the door frame.

“Sorry, it’s been a long ride up. Mind if I come in for a bit?” Tobin lowers his voice even as he smiles, making it clear he’s not really asking for a favor.

The woman purses her lips, but the door doesn’t budge at all when she tries to shut it again, so she sighs and lets Tobin push it open. “If you must,” she says, “but sheathe your weapon.”

It’s by no means an unreasonable request, but Tobin doesn’t trust it for a second. The woman lacks the muscle mass associated with weapon or endurance training, but she might still be a mage, especially if someone’s mistaken her for a witch.

Despite that, Tobin sheaths his sword. Caution is one thing, but he’s not a barbarian.

“Thank you,” he tells her when she doesn’t attempt to light him on fire the second the door closes behind him.

“It’s no trouble,” she says in a tone that makes it clear that even if he had inconvenienced her, she would never give him the satisfaction of knowing it. “There’s not much to see.”

“It’s quite roomy,” Tobin says, the only compliment he can think that isn’t a blatant lie. The hall is as wide as a full cottage, but completely devoid of furnishings except for a giant brass chandelier looming overhead, a few cracked vases sitting on the gray tile floor, and a giant tapestry hung against the far wall. It’s the only thing worth looking at, even if the stitching is so old time has slowly unraveled it. Tobin can make out two figures: the one on the left is one of the loveliest young women he’s ever seen, with pin straight hair and clever eyes. The other is a man dressed in noble’s finery, though the details of his face have been mutilated beyond recognition by some sharp blade. Neither of them is the woman leading him deeper into villa. “Are you here alone?”

The woman glances at the tapestry but doesn’t seem to regard it very highly. “I have two sisters,” she says.

“That’s not what I asked.”

“...Hestia is here. Sonya is not.” It’s clearly not in her nature to frown, but the woman turns her face away from him stubbornly.

It makes Tobin feel a little guilty, but he’s here on a job. “And your name is?”

“Marla.” The name is completely unfamiliar, but well… it’s not like Tobin was expecting to find someone he knew up here.

She leads him down a corridor next to the stairs, into a sitting room that looks like it belongs in Faye’s grandmother’s house. Time has taken its toll here too, but someone has painstakingly cleared the dust and made it presentable again. Tobin gingerly sits on the camel-back sofa, so sun-faded its rosy pattern seems indistinguishable from a solid print.

“Please...make yourself at home,” Marla says. “May I bring you water or tea?”

“Water, if it wouldn’t be too much trouble, and some for my horse too.” Tobin inclines his head respectfully, but the second Marla excuses herself, he gets to his feet to investigate the room closer.

It looks, upon inspection, like a civilian sitting room, which makes it all the more suspicious to Tobin. The previous resident had, after all, been a witch with few qualms about skirting what broader society found acceptable. Tobin isn’t really sure which breed of civilian would consider this place opportune real estate but he’s going to find out.

There’s an antique cabinet against the far wall, from which a series of porcelain dolls, each with distinctive faces and sewn dresses, peers out at him. Tobin ventures nearer, but outside of their eerie, unblinking eyes, they seem harmless. The woven rug in front of the sofa is stained in places, but otherwise plush, and the hardwood is solid underneath.

It doesn’t reek of witch at all, but the furniture and various accoutrements are old enough it’s unlikely Marla and her sisters hauled them up the mountain when they moved in.

Next to the doll cabinet is a bookshelf taller than Tobin himself. He scans the titles, searching for anatomy tomes or spellbooks, or even religious texts, but he only recognizes the titles of old fairy tales and the odd folk story about pagan gods. Many of the books don’t have titles on their spines at all. Tobin pulls one such book off the shelf and opens it.

It’s a love story, a rather titillating one if the page Tobin skims is any indication.

“Damon’s rippled chest muscles heaved against Lavinia’s bosom - “ reads a voice near Tobin’s ear, and he slams the novel shut. His instinct is to go for his sword, but he ignores it. After so many battles, his instinct always tells him to fight, and he’d learned soon after the war’s end that violence is rarely the appropriate response.

A woman who is clearly Marla’s sister smirks at him, stepping back out of his space. She has short lavender hair, glossy and straight instead of Marla’s curls. Her eyes are just as discerning as Marla’s.

“Hestia,” she says. “Pleased to make your acquaintance, Sir Knight.”

“Just Tobin, please,” Tobin says, though not out of any kind of deference. Hestia says his title the same way others say _cantor_ , with a detached sort of pity. Like he’s one of those goats in a pen, raised for slaughter. “I was just, uh…”

“No need to explain yourself,” Hestia says, plucking the book from between Tobin’s fingers. She slots it back into the bookshelf. “We know what to expect from your kind.”

Her eyes linger on his face, a gaze which Tobin returns steadily. He’s the transgressor here, so he doesn’t try to appease her. “If you and your sisters truly aren’t witches, then it’d be best to leave here. This place… Whatever reason you’re interested in it, it isn’t worth losing your life over.”

Hestia smiles. “You’d let us go that easily?”

“Have you done something wrong?” Tobin returns.

Humming, Hestia draws nearer - flirtatiously so, but her eyes aren’t set on Tobin. “Between ‘done something wrong’ and ‘haven’t done something wrong,’” she says, grazing Tobin’s side, right above his belt, as she reaches for his sword, “I’d say it’s the former.” She grabs the hilt of his sword and draws it, brandishing it so the blade catches the sunlight streaming through the windows.

Tobin lets her. The way Hestia holds a sword is wrong, if she’d wanted to suddenly skewer him with it, and moments later she proves his suspicions accurate by throwing the blade aside with a ferocity Tobin can’t remember ever possessing. The impact rattles the wall, knocking a dainty porcelain plate off its hanger. The sword sticks into the wood grain of the wall; the plate shatters against the ground.

“If you don’t mind, please don’t nick the blade. It was quite expensive,” Tobin says mildly.

Hestia glowers, and it’s a familiar rage. The Rigelian ladies wore it often, back during the first weeks after King Alm’s coronation, when it became clear that the progression of the nation would proceed with or without them. They were never able to actually hurt Tobin, or any of new knights, without risking treason. Back then it was a novelty to Tobin that fighting back against Alm could be called treason at all, and that there were consequences in place to dissuade others from joining in. But the punishment did exist, and it needed to be harsh - not because King Alm lacked mercy but because, given too much liberty, people often did not do what you needed them to.

That’s how Clive explained it anyway, and Tobin had thought it sort of made sense, especially in the aftermath when all the people who had flourished under the Duma Faithful realized that the power they’d long accumulated had little sway on this new king.

They caught the first assassin within a week, all while the leading Rigelian families railed against the illegitimacy of King Rudolf’s secret heir. The next night, while Clive and Sir Mycen deliberated what to do with him, a second assassin managed to get all the way into the royal chambers and was only incapacitated by the queen herself, awoken by happenstance by a nightmare.

It could only mean execution, then, and when a few weeks later, Sir Zeke unearthed a connection between the assassins and one of King Rudolf’s generals, King Alm stripped the man’s entire family of all titles.

Tobin supposes the rest of the nobles fell in line then, unwillingly maybe. He hadn’t paid much attention to the politics of the time. He still doesn’t, not really. But he remembers the ladies. They were cruel to Lady Celica, raised in priories and stick-and-dirt villages without the curtsies, and the ballroom dances, and the little dessert forks that characterized palace culture. But they were cruel in a way that they disguised as concern, with tittering “it would be my _pleasure_ to teach you”s and “oh you poor dear, why you’ve hardly really gotten to be a princess at all”s.

Once Tobin was walking with Clair, and he’d overheard the tail end of “--dresses has she soiled in blood?” just as they turned a corner.

“Do they always speak of you that way?” he’d asked her.

And Clair just smiled and shook her head and said, “Oh, let them be angry.”

That type of anger, Tobin sees in Hestia. A helpless kind of anger, from someone unused to helplessness.

“Why have you come here?” she says, voice low now, but not for shyness.

“I’m here looking for a witch,” says Tobin.

“You aren’t.” Hestia looks him dead in the eye. Tobin thinks she isn’t as pretty as her sister is, or at least, not in that classical painting kind of way. But she’s alive, burning with it, and he can’t help but look back. “If you were, you’d be satisfied now. Or you would have killed us to be done with it and been on your way.”

“Your sister, Sonya,” Tobin says. “I haven’t met her yet.”

“She’s human. I’m sure you’ve guessed.”

Tobin steps back, physically breaking whatever - thrall Hestia has him in. The doorway’s still empty; Marla isn’t back, and Tobin doesn’t know how much time has passed or whether her absence suggests something. “All right,” he says, and yeah, it’s not like he suspects the sisters have hidden a witch away somewhere. Witches tend to be a lot more conspicuous about all the murders and magic.

“Why have you come here?” Hestia repeats.

“Because I’m a knight.”

It’s the simplest answer there is, and Hestia turns away with an air of disappointment. Tobin isn’t sure what she wanted from him, if she sees through him so clearly.

“Knights aren’t welcome here.”

...

He sets up camp a little aways from the villa, though still in eyesight of the door. Marla hadn’t batted an eyelash when Tobin excused himself upon her return, and well, although she offered him a room, Tobin recognizes relief when he sees it.

Noah snuffles from where Tobin tied her to a scraggly naked tree. She watches the little fire he’s started with equal parts interest and caution. Marla was kind enough to provide a wooden bucket for her to drink from, but Tobin declined her offer of grains.

There are no witches here.

Tobin could go back and report that to Clive, and that would be the end of it. He hasn’t given Clive any reason to disbelieve him - and he wouldn’t be lying. He’s camped here to allow Noah some rest before the return trip, that’s all.

Bizarrely, he still feels Hestia’s judgment even though it’s unlikely she’s watching him from the window.

For supper, he kills two hares and makes short work of them. He eats better at the palace, but there’s something grounding about catching your own dinner. It’s familiar. Humbling.

Or maybe that thought’s conceited too, that he’s better than the breed of noble who would die out in the wild without silverware to eat with.

Noah’s soft whicker alerts Tobin to approaching footsteps, and he looks up to see the third, and last, sister making her way to him. Tobin looks her up and down; he can’t help it. She’s familiar, somehow, like he’s seen her somewhere before. In court maybe. She’s slim, and pretty, in that noblewoman way, but she doesn’t carry herself like one. Her steps are broad, like a fighter swaggers, and her pants are lightly stained at the knees.

Marla had said it was only her and Hestia at the villa, and Tobin hadn’t noticed Sonya’s return, but before he can give it much thought, Sonya says, “I was wondering what kind of man could distress Hestia so much. Good evening, Sir Tobin.”

Tobin pauses for three seconds, making sure none of his surprise shows on his face, before replying with a neutral, “And to you, Lady Sonya.”

She laughs, not maliciously but a laugh all the same. “It’s all right if you don’t remember me. It’s not like we ever spoke.”

“Forgive me,” Tobin says. Sonya is older than him, maybe older than Lukas too, and if it doesn’t show on her face, it shows on the way she regards him. Tobin is used to people eyeing his shield with wariness but Sonya looks at him like he’s a child, like nothing he does could possibly surprise her. “You’re not one of the court ladies.”

“I’m not,” she confirms. Then she pauses and her next words are spoken with such consideration Tobin wonders if there’s a different meaning he can’t discern. “I was there at that battle.”

Tobin gets her meaning immediately. It’s a little weird, how little he and Alm and Gray talk about it. Somehow it feels like they made the decision to kill Duma, so now that it’s over they can only face the consequences head on.

“I’d heard Queen Celica brought help.” He only really knew Lord Conrad; there had been mercenaries who’d departed after a few weeks, but they weren’t the sort of men Tobin found easy to approach. There’d been the queen’s childhood friends too, but, well. A headstrong girl and a wallflower boy - they’d struck a little too close to home for Tobin, and eventually they’d left as well. “Admittedly I never looked too far into it. Just never seemed that important.”

“I didn’t exactly want to be looked into,” Sonya says. She smiles, casting her gaze at Noah, who straightens with a snort. Tobin takes notice of that; Noah generally erred on the side of caution and didn’t even show off for stallions. “I hear you came in pursuit of a witch.”

“Uh, yeah, I mean. Villagers probably just saw a woman in the wilderness and assumed, so - “

Sonya cuts him off. “You’re too late. She ran off.”

“Excuse me?”

“The witch, right?” Sonya raises an eyebrow. “She was holed up here...but I wanted the house, so I scared her off.”

Tobin has several questions, but first and foremost - “Witches don’t run away,” he says.

“Maybe not if you just shake your sword at them.”

She says it like Tobin hasn’t slain dozens of witches himself, witches he punctured through the chest or beheaded or whittled away little by little until the power of their magic wasn’t enough to contain the blood escaping their wounds. “I’ve never met a witch with the awareness to even...comprehend self-preservation,” he says uneasily. “They’re…”

“Like monsters?” Sonya supplies.

“Like holes,” Tobin says. “Vacant and wanting. And all they want is to stop feeling incomplete. But Duma is never coming back so the only way is to kill them.”

“You think they seek death and that’s why they don’t run away?” Sonya tilts her head to the side, and her sleek violet hair falls over her shoulder to brush her elbow. “Simplistic, but you’re not entirely wrong. And yet, just because they do not balk at death does not mean they don’t fear.”

“If you know so much about witches, tell me then. What are they scared of?” Tobin asks.

It’s hard to read Sonya’s expression in the dusk. She closes her eyes and exhales, and when she opens them again she says, “It’s not something you would understand if I just told you. It might not even be something you’d be better off knowing.”

Tobin supposes this is another thing that doesn’t matter, not in the long run. Whether witches can fear or not, their lives end the same way on the other end of his sword. Even when he first left Ram Village, he never dwelt too long on those Rigelian soldiers he slew. It was necessary not to, normal even.

Still, it’s a cold way to be.

“Ignorance isn’t really bliss. It’s just an illusion,” Tobin says.

“Hm.” Sonya turns so her back faces him. “Well, if you actually feel that way, perhaps you’ll join me for a little witch hunting tomorrow morning? If you’re up for it.”

Tobin shrugs. “Sure. It’s kind of my job anyway.”

“And there are guest rooms in case you’d rather sleep on a bed instead of the ground.”

“Can you promise your sister won’t put nails in my shoes while I sleep?” Tobin asks. Sonya laughs and starts walking towards the villa without answering.

The wind steals away the last of her laughter, and then Sonya is gone, and Tobin mutters, “I’ll pass.” Bereft of Sonya’s scrutinizing attention, he suddenly feels hyper aware of the slight chill of the settling night. He puts another branch into the fire.

When he’s in strange surroundings, making camp always anchors Tobin, but Sonya’s words have rendered his bedroll unfamiliar again. A world where witches are not just feared, but fear in turn...

It makes the stars look a little dimmer, that’s all.

...

“You can handle taking point, right?”

Sonya can teleport like a witch. In the morning, she instructs Tobin to leave Noah in Marla’s care, then takes his hands into hers and warps them to a large crevice in the wall of the mountainside. Instead of a weapon, she brought a torch and a small silver chalice, neither of which Tobin inquired into, but...

“Er, are we not going to talk about that?”

Sonya looks at Tobin innocently. “You’re scared?”

“What? No, I can handle a witch. I’m talking about… We just warped.” Tobin knows he’s justified in asking, but everything Sonya does is with a straightforward confidence that makes him think _maybe_ teleportation is just a mage thing?

“It’s just a spell,” she says. “Not something you have to give up your soul for.”

“Oh.” Something about that doesn’t seem quite right to Tobin, but he’s not exactly qualified to offer input into discussions about magic. “That’s rather convenient.”

“It has its uses.” Sonya lights the torch wordlessly. Though she’s still dressed sensibly in a tunic and pants, her lace gloves and glossy free-flowing hair are still ill-suited for spelunking. “I’ll light the way.”

Tobin takes out his bow - his preferred weapon against enemies with the luxury of attacking from afar, and often with little warning. “Stay right behind me,” he instructs Sonya. “It’ll be harder for me to protect you if I don’t know your position.”

“Trust me, I can take care of myself,” Sonya says, sounding amused, but she lets him walk ahead of her. The sound of her footfalls are almost undetectable, and she doesn’t have the slight clinking of platemail giving her movements away. As Tobin approaches the cave entrance, it’s like he’s going into battle alone, except when he turns around Sonya is right there.

Unnerving, knowing someone is there but being unable to sense them, even if they’re supposedly an ally. Tobin entertains the thought that this is a trap, but it’s a thought without basis. He doesn’t have a reason to distrust what Sonya says. If he feels a little curl of unease somewhere in his gut, well, it’s probably just lingering wariness from the teleportation.

“So do you use magic to locate witches too?” Tobin asks as they descend. His opinion of caves hasn’t changed since the war: he isn’t a fan. The dark, tunnely ones look the same all over, and even the experience of naturally made caves, with glittering stalactites and hidden lakes, is sullied when Tobin’s expecting an enemy to pop out at any moment - which characterizes 100% of his cave explorations.

“Believe it or not, magic has limitations,” Sonya says. “I find them same as you, following rumors to their source.”

The image of Sonya gossiping with villagers strikes Tobin as fundamentally off. It isn’t for lack of charisma, or that he thinks she wouldn’t actually do it. It could be projection, but he and Sonya - at their core, they are people who are no longer normal, who no longer really care about the minutiae of society when they’ve seen society fall apart at the seams.

They’re different, and they can’t hide those scars from common people. Tobin’s tried. “Then yesterday you were - “

“I tracked this one here. Would’ve killed her then but it was nightfall and I don’t work at night,” Sonya says.

“You knew there was a witch in here and you left?” Tobin says sharply, and probably a little louder than was necessary. His voice startles off a few bats in the distance and if the witch didn’t notice them coming, she knows now. Given she’s still here, that is.

“Easy there. She’s here,” Sonya says. Absolute certainty. “They’re dying out and they know it. They won’t leave a shelter if they aren’t forced.”

The uneasy feeling returns, full force, and Tobin looks around expecting some kind of ambush but there’s only brown rock and silence. “You talk to them before you kill them or something?”

“Don’t be silly. Look up ahead.”

Tobin looks. The tunnel opens up into a fire-lit chamber, the likes of which Tobin had seen so often hiding out in caves and shrines during the war. Stone pillars hold up the walls, draped in leafy vines and evergreen mosses, and in the middle of the room stands an homage to Mila.

The statue holds a glassy orb, cracked and discolored, and some terrible force has torn off one of her carved wings. It lays behind her against the cave wall ten paces away.

“So they hate Mila,” Tobin says, and it doesn’t even come out a condemnation now that Mila is dead.

 _Let them be angry_ , says the Clair in his head.

Instead he scans the chamber, searching for a present threat, but the air is still and devoid of malice. There’s a passage in the back corner leading deeper into the mountain, which Tobin regards with healthy skepticism but he’s come this far already.

“Why would they hate Mila?” Sonya says. The words sound both true and untrue. “It’s not like they have a connection to Duma anymore.”

The next room is smaller, containing a single lion head fountain. Tobin barely has time to register it when he sees green light in his peripheral and he’s mid-roll before he remembers Sonya - but she’s gone, reappeared next to the lion head, and flinging spells at the witch.

The witch warps from within the onslaught of Sonya’s magic, harried but only lightly singed. The first hundred times Tobin saw it happen, his stomach dropped out from under him at the prospect of fighting an unforeseeable enemy, but no longer. Enemies think the same way whether they’re visible or not. He notches his arrow.

The witch reappears at the far end of the room, the optimum vantage point to have both enemies in her sights at once, and as her gaze falls on Tobin for the first time, his arrow catches her in the throat.

She doesn’t hit the ground immediately. Her eyes bulge and one hand goes to her throat, helplessly, and a terrible sound not human enough to be called a scream comes out of her mouth. Duma can’t help her now though, and Tobin lowers his bow.

As she falls though, her other hand goes up, reaches for Tobin like she’s asking for help. The green light coalesces at her fingertips again. Tobin ducks out of the way, but the witch’s dying spell soars overhead and collides with the roof of the passageway.

“Oh,” Tobin says as a chunk of rock breaks off from overhead.

Then Sonya is behind him, pulling him out of the way with a barely audible, “Watch your head.”

All in all, the worst he suffers is the new layer of rockdust covering his shoes, which isn’t bad for a witch fight and minor cave-in even if these boots were full grain leather.

Sonya releases her grip on his arm. “Uh, thanks,” Tobin says, more out of politeness than a genuine belief he couldn’t have stepped out of the way in time.

“You’re pretty handy with that thing, aren’t you?” Sonya says. She doesn’t fuss over him though, instead striding back over to the witch.

“You too. I mean, you’re pretty good at handling yourself also.”

He follows Sonya to the corpse, collapsed in that crooked, unmistakably dead way. Her eyes are open, staring at Tobin even now. Like this, she looks just like a human, her vivid red hair spilling onto the ground like her blood. Her dress is worn, with old stains all over the sleeves and skirt.

“Here,” says Sonya as she tosses something at his feet. It’s his arrow, the tip glossy with blood.

“Er,” says Tobin. He supposes this is a common practice, recuperating arrows to diminish the loss to his stock, but… he’s certainly reached a point where he can afford to buy a new one. He picks it up anyway. There must be some kind of etiquette regarding this scenario but it’s not one that Clive has taught him. “Thanks.”

“We were lucky she didn’t manage to cave the whole doorway,” Sonya says. “Can you check if there was a cave-in anywhere else? Tremors travel through mountains.”

“Yeah, of course,” Tobin says.

A witch is dead, which was his job coming here in the first place, but still, as Tobin carefully skirts the new pile of rocks partially blocking the passageway, he feels no sense of relief. It doesn’t even feel like progress; like what else can he do now but go back to the palace, get his next orders? He’ll get paid and he’ll send a third of it home. He’ll put another third into maintaining his gear and accommodations for Noah. And then he’ll get sent back out to kill more witches or bandits, putting on a brave face to earn the trust of civilians whom he’ll never tell the grittier details of his job.

The Mila statue is unmoved when he emerged into the big chamber, but of course, she always stands guard here. Even when no one is here to see her or appreciate her, she waits for them. Maybe one day the mountain will cave in entirely, crushing these tunnels and imprisoning her in the earth forever, just like Mila’s actual body.

She’ll stay here regardless. It’s not like anyone has a use for her out there.

Tobin pauses by the pedestal. The air is still, completely undisturbed, but… He looks up at Mila’s face. Her gaze is vacant. This is just an idol, and yet, Tobin remembers so clearly Alm kneeling in supplication before one of the statues, asking for her protection and grace. Mila can’t be watching over Tobin now. He’s alone here, with Sonya, and the witch’s corpse.

There’s something wrong. It’s not because of a cave-in. He isn’t worried about one; Sonya teleported them here and she could teleport them out.

She wanted him gone for a reason.

He’s sprinting back before he even knows what he’s afraid of.

Sonya isn’t where he left her, and neither is the witch, but there’s blood streaks from the spot the witch fell over to where both of them are now, Sonya crouching over their kill with her silver chalice in hand. She jolts as Tobin enters and says, “Oh, already? You don’t trust me that much?”

“What are you doing?” Tobin asks. The chalice is empty now, but it glistens in the torchlight like it’s wet.

“Nothing,” says Sonya, and that’s when the witch sits up again.

Tobin shoots her again - or he tries to, but Sonya’s spell burns his arrow midair. He notches another while yelling, “What the hell is this?”

“Calm down.” Sonya gets to her feet, standing in front of the witch, who seems unsteady and dazed. “Let me explain before you go murdering people.”

“I’m not being the irrational one,” Tobin says.

“No, you’re just the ignorant one.” Sonya frowns. “Let me explain.”

After a brief hesitation, wherein the witch doesn’t suddenly regain her composure and warp away, Tobin lowers his bow. But only a little. “I’m listening.”

“To summarize, if you kill a witch and make them drink from these fountains, they’ll return to life with their souls intact,” Sonya says.

“What?” Tobin yelps, forgetting to be angry. It’s so unexpected he doesn’t for a second even doubt that it’s possible.

“It’s a long story.” Sonya shifts, looking uncomfortable for the first time. “You seemed on the verge of shooting so I thought I’d get to the point.”

Forcing himself to exhale, Tobin lets the bow string go slack. “I’m not going to shoot you. Why don’t you explain so that I can follow?”

“You two are…” the witch - the girl? - murmurs, confusion clearing out of her voice as she slowly regains her bearings. Her face goes white and her eyes wide. Her throat is healed, through some kind of dark magic. Tobin takes a step back on instinct.

“It’s all right. You’re safe,” Sonya says, and she reaches for the girl’s shoulder to steady her. “I guess I’ll explain for both of you.”

“What?” The girl reaches to touch her throat before looking at her hands in shock.

“I needed a way to bring witches back to life. No, the girls before they were turned into witches. I wanted to save them,” Sonya says.

The girl goes still. “And the fountains do that?” Tobin says.

“There’s precedent for it. The gods have the ability to bring back the dead. It’s in scholarly texts, and it happened to Celica.” Sonya purses her lips. “Mila saved her. And somehow, these fountains have that same power.”

It sounds ludicrous to Tobin, but then so is a farm boy becoming a knight or a king.

“There’s been a mistake,” the girl says suddenly. She staggers to her feet, pulling away from Sonya’s touch. “I’m not a witch.”

“You’re not,” Sonya says, soft. Kind, even.

“N-no, I wasn’t a witch. I’m just...I’m just a normal girl.” She averts her gaze from Sonya, looking to Tobin, then flinches when she sees him watching her.

“Hey, we’re not accusing you - “ he starts, but then the girl screams.

“No! Help me!” Darting past him, she makes for the exit, nearly tripping over the mass of rocks blocking the passageway. Tobin moves to intercept her but Sonya’s voice stops him.

“Just let her go.”

It’s the same way Clair spoke about the noblewomen. Sad, but knowing and weary.

“Do they always run?” Tobin asks.

“Some. Some look for guidance and leave when I have none. Some go, and return when they find nowhere to go home to, and then leave when they learn I have nothing for them either.” Sonya smiles. It’s beautiful on her but in the same way a mourning veil is on a widow.

“Sounds like death would be kinder.” Tobin looks back at the passageway the girl had disappeared through.

“Perhaps.” Sonya turns her head to the side and says, “Ready to head back?”

From here, Tobin can only see a fathomless stretch of dirt and darkness, but he knows what’s on the other end: grass and sun and a big, wide world where the worst thing you can be is a monster.

“Yeah,” he says. “I’m ready.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is a nagamas gift for Nelenus for the prompt "revival fountain"! sorry for the delay. as you can see, it got away from me. it's marked 1/3 bc even tho this part stands on its own, i'm interested in continuing it - my full outline looks like it'll end up being 15k+ to 20k, which...i definitely wasn't gonna manage within the deadline. hope you enjoy it tho!
> 
> ive been wanting to do a sonya fic for a while, so this is a product of that x the discovery that Alm didn't give Tobin a noble title immediately, which.... bad look, alm
> 
> i'm housemenidy on tumblr. this is a thinky fic so i'd love to hear anyone's thoughts too


	2. Chapter 2

“Why are you still here?” Hestia scowls, slamming her hand against the table with enough force to send Tobin’s fork pinwheeling from his plate to the floor.

Tobin looks up from his breakfast, a simple spring omelet courtesy of Marla. “Good morning,” he says.

“You said you’re a knight, so go back out there and kiss up to your king and do knight stuff.” She bares her teeth, clearly grasping for any words that might remind Tobin of his duty.

“Well, my investigation recently found some evidence that you three are dangerous,” Tobin tells her. “I’ll send a letter to Clive. It’s important someone keeps an eye on you.”

Hestia steps back, momentarily more affronted than angry. “Dangerous?”

“Come now. I can’t let you go _reviving the dead_ without supervision.” Tobin picks up the fork and considers it. Eh, he’s eaten worse off the ground. “Besides, Sonya offered me a room.”

Specifically, he’d asked her how long she planned on staying on Fear Mountain and Sonya had said, “As long as you need.” By Tobin’s estimate, Sonya is the youngest, but it looks like both Hestia and Marla defer to her. The exact reason why, Tobin hasn’t discerned yet. Hestia clamps her mouth shut, even if she continues to glower.

“Why you…?” she muttered, then spins on her heels and marches back out.

The villa is too big for the four of them, not the least because Sonya is wholly absorbed in her mission and Marla endeavors to make herself as scarce as a ghost - although it doesn’t stop her from materializing any time Tobin requires her. From her too, Tobin senses deep disapproval, but she doesn’t express it out loud.

Hestia does. As loudly and as frequently as she can. They’re different, all three of them, and yet there are times Tobin will, through a window, catch a glimpse of Hestia on the balcony watching the horizon. When she thinks she’s alone and the fight goes out of her, when she looks at the sun like she’s waiting for some sky-given guidance, the profile of her face is a splitting image of Marla’s.

Or else Tobin will walk into the kitchen while Marla prepares supper and catch her mashing potatoes with a ferocity belied by her usual poise.

One day he finds Sonya in the entrance hall, staring thoughtfully at the tapestry there. She doesn’t move when Tobin joins her, though she’s definitely noticed. The tapestry is unchanged since the first time he laid eyes on it: a woman with hair a little lighter than Marla’s, staring straight ahead with pride, and the remnants of what used to be a man.

“Do you know her?” Tobin asks.

“Her? Not exactly,” is the opaque response.

It’s unusual phrasing, so Tobin guesses, “Er...then the guy?”

Sonya gives a little chuckle before turning her head towards Tobin. “No, I don’t know either of them as people. But the tapestry - it’s kind of a fantasy, isn’t it?”

Tobin blinks, wondering if he’s missed something in his analysis of it. He won’t claim to be an artist. The tapestry is neatly woven; some dozens of hours must have gone into it, but he’s seen finer in the palace. The girl… She’s a noblewoman, surely - who else would have the means to commission a tapestry - but there’s something keener to her than someone like, say, Lady Mathilda, whose success is only outstripped by her abundant talent and charisma. This woman seems more like Sonya, canny, but someone to whom people aren’t drawn naturally.

She looks happy.

“Isn’t it a tragedy more than a fantasy?” Tobin asks.

“Oh?”

“She’s happy now, but…” Tobin can’t even make out what color the man’s hair was. What little of his face hasn’t been gouged out is blackened with soot. “It clearly didn’t last.”

Sonya makes a noise of deliberation, low and drawn out. “You’re a romantic,” she says at last.

It’s such an absurd thing to say Tobin feels himself flushing, which. That hasn’t happened in a while. “I am not.”

“Hah.” Sonya grins. It makes her look younger. “A tragic failed love story, huh?”

“What else would it be?”

The smile stays on Sonya’s face, but the light behind it dims a little as she looks back at the tapestry. “Well… it’s revenge, isn’t it?” She walks forward, carefully, and the click of her heels echoes around the vacant hall. With a gloved hand, she reaches out and brushes her fingertips against the edge of the scorch mark. “That she lived past it and destroyed him. Not a story of love. One of hatred.”

“That’s…” The tone of her voice gives Tobin chills. “That’s your fantasy?”

“To bring destruction and suffering to my enemies? Sure, why not?” Sonya says casually.

Tobin studies her face, the slight curve of her lips, the lowered lashes. Whether she meant it as a joke or not, the core of her anger is there - a fury that matches that of her sisters.

It’s discomforting, seeing that pain. Not knowing how to help her. Not knowing how to ask.

“Awh, you’re worried about me,” Sonya says. “Don’t be. There’s nothing you can do for me, and you’ll get wrinkles.”

“I’m not worried,” Tobin says, and the words are hollow but they make Sonya smile again.

“Good,” Sonya says. “Besides, you’re right, in a way. That girl got her revenge but...only at the cost of her soul.”

Tobin furrowed his brow. “She became a witch?”

“Perhaps you’ve heard of her? The mistress of Fear Mountain. She got her revenge and haunted this mountain for a hundred years.” She nodded at the recognition dawning on Tobin’s face. “I came here for her.”

Tobin opens his mouth and then shuts it, stricken by the realization that he knows the girl in the tapestry. “Wait, you want to revive _Nuibaba_?”

“Oh, you do know her,” Sonya says.

“We killed her,” Tobin says. “Me and A - King Alm and Clive. She was kidnapping girls from the village and sacrificing them.”

Sonya inclines her head, something catching her attention even if she doesn’t look repentant. “I heard about that,” she says.

It’s a neutral statement, but closed off at the same time - Tobin’s words aren’t actually reaching her. “Sonya, she’s not like the other witches. What she’s done… she’s dangerous. She doesn’t deserve a second chance.”

“You intend to stop me?” Sonya says, and it would be a taunt coming from anyone else, but from Sonya, it almost sounds like she’s pleading with Tobin. He doesn’t know what she wants from him, whether she wants his permission or his condemnation. His gut, the part of him that still feels a little pride hearing people call him “Sir Tobin” even when he earned the title with blood - that part of him rebels against the idea that someone like Nuibaba could receive a little bit of Mila’s grace.

There’s a smaller part of him that thinks, who the hell is Tobin to stop Sonya from doing anything? He’s a knight, sure, but only for his efforts in the war, and Sonya helped fell Duma too.

That part makes him uneasy: what does it make him, to permit this madness?

“Yeah. With force, if necessary,” Tobin says, out loud so he’ll be bound to the promise. “It’s my job after all.”

Sonya’s face goes blank, for a second, before her eyes soften. When she speaks, it’s gently, but each of her words hangs in the air for far longer than their syllables do. “As you wish, but… the weight of our sins is more than just our actions.”

Tobin looks away. He has to; the thought of it frightens him still. He knows it haunts King Alm too, how great his power is and how greatly one mistake could devastate, and though reminders Tobin is still only a commoner sting, there are moments he’s so, so grateful to just be...small.

As a knight, if he makes a bad judgment, maybe someone will die. Maybe he’ll fail someone who needed him, or maybe he’ll intervene on the behalf of someone who didn’t. Tobin doesn’t dare think of anything greater than that. That someone he killed could have done good in turn, or that someone he let live ended up hurting others. He just goes back to Clive when he’s done and receives a new assignment.

His silence is as good an answer as anything he could have said. Sonya inclines her head and, through some small stroke of mercy, says nothing also as she walks away.

It’s shaky ground they’ve trespassed upon, a realm reserved for gods. Who else could say if people deserved a second life? But then, in the end, both Mila and Duma had been wrong too.

Tobin looks back at the tapestry. Nuibaba and her spurned lover. Or Nuibaba and her sworn enemy.

Or perhaps neither.

...

For the most part, Tobin tries to stay out of the way too. Nuibaba’s tapestry continues to hang in the entrance hall, casting a weird claim over the mansion even though the witch is six years dead. It seems her legacy of cruelty is simply too powerful to overcome, no matter how often Marla sweeps the corners and clears cobwebs from the shelves. At the very least, it’s grounding to open a door and wonder how often Nuibaba herself touched this doorknob, stood where he stood and walked into a room the same way. The last time she sat in a particular chair, had she already lost her soul, and did she sit the same way after?

Tobin thinks he can even see the divide in the villa, Nuibaba before and Nuibaba after. The sitting room stands in stark contrast to the rest of the house. He doesn’t linger much there, off put by the clutter, mainly comprised of once-dearly cherished possessions that have been abandoned. It feels too much like standing in the middle of someone’s memories.

The bedrooms on the first floor, where Tobin spends all of his time, are mostly soulless, though in a different manner than the entrance hall. The beds are old, but plain and functional. There are shelves affixed to the wall that might have once born belongings, but they’re empty now. Occasionally there will be a book, but it will have a title like _The Long Canyon_ , and the words contained therein will detail a completely innocuous fable, the likes of which might be found in any house. Or there will be a shirt tucked neatly into a drawer, but it’ll look pressed and unworn.

There’s the library, filled to the ceiling with an eclectic assortment of tomes: on avians and mythology; poetry volumes and collections of inkblots; compiled scrapbooks with pages torn out and detailed notes on market purchases. There’s a little desk in there, now cleared and shiny but Tobin can imagine how it must have collected dust for years. He can imagine, too, a beautiful young woman draped in silks dutifully recording the daily growth and fertilization of her orchids.

And then there’s the dungeons, and well, Tobin doesn’t spend much time down there at all.

He takes most of his meals in his room, and it takes him an embarrassingly long time to wonder how Marla gets the ingredients to cook for four. Even during the bleakest stretches of reconstructing the One Kingdom, food had never been scarce at the palace, and when he’s on the road Tobin knows his herbs and mushrooms from his upbringing in Ram Village, not to mention he always has his bow. But Marla uses eggs and milk and vegetables that she must get from the village, even if Tobin never actually sees her leave the villa.

She’s an enigma in a way Hestia and Sonya aren’t. Hestia, Tobin can handle. Hestia burns at her very core, with anger and spite, so brightly that any walls or masks burn up before they’re erected. She says what she thinks, and Tobin can respond in kind. Sonya may be harder to read, but she divulges her thoughts easily. Her words are chosen carefully, but with intent, and it makes her just as honest as her sister.

Marla doesn’t give Tobin anything to work with. She barely engages with him outside of delivering his food. At first, Tobin thinks she dislikes him like Hestia does, but puts up with him out of hospitality, but as the weeks roll into a month and Marla’s behavior doesn’t change - nary a curt comment or curious glance anywhere - Tobin is forced to conclude she just doesn’t care about him at all.

He’s… Well, it smarts a little. The oldest of seven, Tobin remembers learning early how to take care of himself, how to keep his siblings in line, so his parents wouldn’t have to worry. And of course, no matter how good he was, he could never compete with Alm. Faye and Celica only had eyes for him, and Gray had his sights set on glory far beyond Ram Village, and Kliff was looking at something none of them could even fathom.

There, Tobin was always the normal one. Here, too, amidst the three sisters… Tobin’s the transgressor here as well.

So he stakes out the villa.

Marla is difficult to find during the day, and Tobin isn’t brave enough to knock on her door at night. The only way to get her to talk to him, he reasons, is an ambush. One day he just wakes up early, finds his breakfast on a tray near his door, and after he brings the dishes back to the kitchen, he finds a spot on the porch to sit and wait.

He waits the whole day, doodling on a notepad and fashioning makeshift arrows and slings from sticks he finds on the ground, though he makes sure to keep within sight of the front door. The next day, he waits again, rousing Noah from the stable Hestia made for her to keep him company.

On the fifth day, Marla exits the villa to find Tobin shooting arrows into a tree. To her credit, she only looks at him impassively before descending the stairs. Her gait doesn’t falter even as Tobin falls into step beside her.

“Do you always make this trip alone?” Tobin asks.

“Someone has to. Sonya is busy.”

The mountain path is steep and not well-traversed. With little human intervention, the wildlife has had the freedom to grow. Little shrubs with budding red-green leaves get underfoot, and the wild grass grows vivid and calf-high. Through it all, Marla’s pace is steady but slow. Tobin observes it with interest, how she walks without fear of stepping in mud or tripping, and yet sometimes she’s a little too careful to have grown up outdoors.

“Hestia’s not,” Tobin points out.

Marla glances at him for the first time. “May I help you?”

“You already do a lot for me,” Tobin says. “I wanted to help you out this time. And I wanted to talk to you.”

“That’s less comforting than you likely believe,” Marla said. She pauses, but a second glance at Tobin betrays her piqued curiosity. “Sonya can warp. Why did you think I wouldn’t?”

“What?”

“Waiting by the door wouldn’t help you if I’d warped down the mountain instead.”

Tobin blinks. “I honestly didn’t consider it.” In fact, he’s lucky she didn’t. Disregarding the wasted time, it would’ve been pretty embarrassing. “Eh, why didn’t you?”

Marla turns back to the road. In profile, she looks older. She’s the tallest of the sisters, and she bears that superlative with the grim dedication of a mother. “I wouldn’t be walking if I had the option not to.”

“I did peg you and Hestia for civilians,” Tobin confesses. “Something about how you follow Sonya. Pardon my language, but she seems the witchiest.”

For a second, Marla almost looks like she’s going to smile. She doesn’t, of course. “You’re a bad judge of character.”

“Er. I suppose so.” Gray and Alm had told Tobin as much straight to his face so often he recovers in a second. “It’s not so easy when you guys have so many secrets.”

“You just don’t ask the right questions,” Marla says, which is true. Tobin hasn’t asked Marla any questions, mostly because she’s never there to ask.

But she’s here now, he supposes. “All right. You don’t hate me, do you?”

She takes a moment to think. “Is there a reason I would?”

“Hestia sure thinks so.”

Marla makes that face again, the one where her lips narrow and her eyes grow still, and it doesn’t look quite like fondness and it doesn’t look quite like sadness. “Hestia… She doesn’t hate you. At least, not the way you think. Her feelings are complex.”

Tobin snorts. “Oh, I’m sure,” he says, but it’s not as though he doubts that Hestia has her reasons. Marla stops walking, tilting her head the same way Sonya does as she affixes Tobin with that penetrating stare.

“We grew up in a priory. We didn’t have a choice how to be, not if we wanted to survive. It was bleak, but we had each other. Until one day we didn’t.”

“I heard. Or at least, I assumed. Sonya said she fought with Queen Celica, but she didn’t mention you or Hestia,” Tobin says.

“We fought.” Marla looks away, up towards a nearby tree like she expects to find something in the branches. “Father said Lord Duma would reward us handsomely.”

A sudden wind rustles through the leaves and sets Marla’s hair aflutter.

“Hestia and Sonya were frightened. They wanted to escape, but I wasn’t strong enough to stop Father. So Hestia stayed behind too.” Her sentences are clipped, but her inflection remains unchanged from those same soft tones. The words are properly enunciated. Factual. If she realizes Tobin’s shiver has nothing to do with the wind, Marla doesn’t show it. And yet, the way she fixes her gaze on some distant point over Tobin’s shoulder says more than Hestia ever has.

“You aren’t witches now, so you must have died. And then Sonya brought you back,” Tobin says.

Marla exhales, once, slow, and makes eye contact. “You don’t remember us, but we remember you. That day… Lord Duma kept us with him until the very end. Sonya knew he would, so she came for us.” She puts her hand on her chest, right under her collarbone. “She got to me, but she couldn’t get to Hestia. Not before you killed her.”

“Oh,” says Tobin. He’s the one to look away now - not by much, but it’s difficult to look Marla in the eye now. People always lectured him on being tone deaf, and it’s not that he wants to hurt people, it’s just. If there are right words for these situations, Tobin’s never been able to come up with them. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

Tobin doesn’t know. He’s not actually sorry for killing witches - any witches, up to and including Hestia. “Just, it must have been hard.”

“Hm.” Marla makes a thoughtful noise, reaching her hand up to touch the side of her jaw, just under her ear. Her lips curl, but it’s only a smile in the same way that wearing a crown would make Tobin a king. “Do you know what it’s like to be a witch?”

“What? No, I don’t.” Sometimes, Tobin comes close to imagining it, but he never lets himself.

“...you fear nothing. You want nothing at all either, or rather, what you want is bigger than yourself, and so there is nothing else that matters. If you were alone before, you are no longer, and the strength of those with you is beyond anything you can conceive.” Marla takes a strand of her hair between two fingers and twists it. “How little it is to be human, after that.”

“But...you can’t really believe witches are better off,” Tobin says. “You saved your sister from that fate.”

Marla’s perfect brow furrows. Her lips part. “I did do that,” she says slowly. “I did that, so you must be right. I don’t remember why anymore, but I saved her, I - ”

She looks stricken for the first time, a blemish of humanity where Tobin hadn’t been expecting to find one. He’d always found it curious how Marla and Hestia yielded to Sonya’s wishes, despite being older and no less independent. He’d chalked it up to a private kind of love, even if it was unrecognizable from his experience with his own siblings.

It’s possible Marla doesn’t realize it herself, how dearly she holds Sonya, the final remnant of before. The one thing she got to keep, when her own life hadn’t been hers to use.

“You’re more human than you think,” Tobin says.

He’s not sure if it’s a compliment or a condemnation. The words are just true. Marla’s face clears, her features settling back into placidity again. “You as well,” she says.

The reminder is good. That they’re human. Only human. “The groceries won’t get themselves,” he says.

“They won’t,” Marla agrees, and it’s like nothing has changed.

Except, Tobin thinks, he understands a little better now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> having a hard time with job hunting so gonna channel that anxiety into powering through this lol


End file.
